The sound being cancelled was, in addition to engine noise, road noise resulting from the interaction between the tires and the ashphault. Fuel cell cars will still have tire noise.
However, I hear they lose the rising pitch we associate with acceleration, so drivers don't have the same queues to their speed.
If I remember correctly, the federal privacy law protects you from the government collecting information on you. It does not preclude the private practice of collecting, storing, using and selling personal information.
I have heard of something like that for cars ages ago, basically replays the engine sound over the car sound to negate it.
They had something like this on an Infiniti, I seem to recall, for tire+road noise, so the car was effectively silent as it drove. I think they cancelled the project because they hit more kids playing in the streets who were acoustically (and otherwise) unaware of the approaching vehicle.
I've always believed that Linux/FOSS distributions would be a fantastic model for this sort of thin horizontal distributed economy. You have thousands, if not millions of Linux savvy people out there who can make money on those around them who just want their computer to work for a specific purpose.
This beats the hell out of the centralized monopoly model. Who better to support your computer than someone who understands it intimately? If they cannot fix it, they can go to the author and ask them to fix it - an unlikely happenstance for the average user, but not so much for a "digitician".
However, the Internet and disks are still not considered taxable medias. Sueing peoples make no sense. What they should do, it is to trying to convince the Board to include Internet and disks in the list. And the money should go to the artists rather than to the recording industry.
You have just identified a distinguishing point upon which a court can make a verdict in favour of the music industry: the Internet is not considered a taxable[sic; should be leviable] media.
As the levy does not apply to the internet, a court may say that it is not private copying at all. The massive scale of the internet also works against it as part of a private copying collective regime. Unlike CD's, P2P over the internet scales exponentionally in an effectively unlimited broadcast-type, indiscriminant scale. Your P2P relationships are definitively copying, hence perhaps outside the common expectation of private, where one would expect that you had a prior existing relationship to accommodate the copying.
Legal though private copying may be, it may be possible to convince a court that copying over the internet is not indemnified. Mind you, I do believe the courts will err on the side of the ISP's, but I wanted to point out this argument since it is, and will continue to be, relevant to the discussion.
Note, some of the money does go to the artists, but the distribution method is, shall we say, currently totally inadequately defined.
This is true, but there certainly aren't several GB of sectors reserved for errors.:)
If I recall my engineering class correctly, it was 40% of the hard drive reserved for errors. That was back in the 240MB HD days, though I'm not sure that the probability of bad sectors would be higher now. If the ratio stays even remotely the same, it could mean 40GB for a 100GB of storage sold as a 60GB drive.
I am actually quite certain that there would be gigabytes allocated to bad sector remapping on modern disks. Whether it is accessible or not is another question - I always assumed it to be transparent and taken care of by the modern hard disk controllers. Mind, bad sectors were once taken care of by BIOS so it is possible that you can circumvent the transparency and access the extra space.
I've got mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, you're right, it's completely wrong, the material is copyright of WSJ and they've got a right to do what they wish with it.
On the other hand, it's pasted here for people to discuss it. The discussion won't make sense without being able to see it (cue 10 comments about/.ers never reading the article anyway...). It won't take away from their business model as nobody looking for WSJ articles will trawl through/. for them, there are just too few of them here.
I know that doesn't negate the fact that it is a plain and simple case of copyright infringement. But practically speaking I don't think it does any real harm...
I agree that it does little harm, and I have mixed feelings too. But I think that there was no benefit to posting the content -- in the case of a slashdotting, it makes sense since the original content is not available in a timely manner. In this case, the content is available.
However, in this case, the content was pasted to slashdot to preempt unavailability 7 days from now. It undermines the desire to read WSJ online, as referenced from slashdot - interferring with two revenue models for them:
1. banner ads, and 2. over 7-day access.
As an open forum, I don't think it would be good, much less practical, to prevent people from posting contents. But certainly I think that there are situations, such as this, where it should be discouraged.
1. blatant plagarism, and 2. undermining their business model.
We might not agree with their business model, and certainly if they were slashdotted I could see posting this having a point, but someone put the time into this work, presumably with remuneration in mind. Just pasting the content here, for the sake of undermining their 7-day free access business model, seems somewhat unethical to me.
Perhaps I'm barking to the wrong bunch.:) It does strike me as a bit of a conundrum, though. Had the authors or creators intended unhindered publication, would they not have specified so?
A couple things. First, the Berne, Paris, et al., conventions and treaties are not binding. Look to the Copyright Act. In particular, Appendix II, s.2: (2) The obligations of the United States under the Berne Convention may be performed only pursuant to appropriate domestic law. This is only relevant in cases of conflict.
s. 106(1) of the US Copyright Act provides the owner protection from copying. SCO will probably argue for a violation of their literary rights to the source code, which though it need not be distributed with the binaries, need be available to be distributed with the binaries [See GNU GPL, s.3(b)], an invitation to copyright infringement. As well, SCO will probably argue that there has been a violation of their right to the binaries.
In both cases, they can go after either the distributor or the recipient for this claim, but will no doubt choose to go after the deeper pockets, and try to set a precedent. You are correct in taht there is no Copyright regime exclusivity of use, but I am not sure there has to be one. We will see!
And the corporation's lawyers will respond, "Sorry, we bought our Linux from (insert distributor here). You have take your claim to them, and you will receive any compensation you might be due directly from them for selling SCO IP without a valid license. Piss off."
The deference argument might not work because of privity. In their mystery world, SCO has a relationship with the particular fortune 500 company, because it is violating SCO's copyright. SCO does not necessarily have a relationship with the distributor. SCO has a right to sue them, too, but Linux distributors are not deep pockets or headline grabbers. A property holder, and similarly in the case of constructive property like copyright, can claim any infringement against any violator, in intent or negligence.
This permits people who copy movies to be as liable as people who possess bootlegs. It is the use (or presumed use) which is violated, and that use often flows from presence. In other words, SCO will say "look, that Acme Co. is violating our property rights by benefitting from their use of Linux." It is possible that it's more likely that you can distribute Linux than you can actually use it, but both are copyright infringements in the absence of permission (as explicitly set out in the GNU GPL), and the "use" of Linux is possibly an ancillary claim of "unjust enrichment" to the user in addition to restitution.
A half-ass analogy would be a movie theatre that rents a DVD at blockbuster and puts it through a projector to make money off of it in public sales, directly contrary to the copyright stipulations on the movie that prohibit redistribution, sale, or profit without prior written authorization. The copyright holder/MPAA isn't going to go after Blockbuster, who legally (or illegally if it's bootlegged) distributed the copyright material, but rather the theatre which also violated the rights. The theatre has (a) potentially deeper pockets, (b) directly, and intentionally or negligently infringed the rights of the property holder, and (c) no means of indemnification through the distributor. The corollary is that there is no onus upon the distributor to validate a use of the purchaser.
In other words, if the use of Linux is part of the claim, not just possession, the Fortune 500 company has no indemnification through the distributor. Unless there was an explicit indemnification clause in the distributor's license (GPL? BSD? etc.) or contract, it is unlikely, or I'd go so far as to say impossible, to pass the buck to them.
The Fortune 500 company is almost certain to be a valid target of SCO's claim. Mind you, being a valid target does not validate the claim itself!
I can't think of a x.y.0 release of any software project that's been properly stable.
OpenBSD comes to mind. I faithfully rely on their.0 releases, and have never been burned. YMMV, of course, and they are an exception, not the rule, I suspect.
Interesting observation. I've seen videos of the side effects on cows with Posilac. I'm not sure what would be mastitis, per se, but I can tell you that what I saw was cruel and repugnant.
The udders would sometimes be swollen and almost dragging on the ground, impeding the cow's ability to walk, and there would be so much pus around the teats that the milking mechanisms would just slide off. There were an assortment other side effects as well.
Mind you, I do not know how often these things occur in untreated cows. The Canadian drug administration indicated a 25% increase in mastitis, among other symptoms (lameness, infertility, reduced life expectancy), and pointedly indicated a nominal increase in milk production. Indeed, from what I recall, the FDA had similar claims, which were erased from the final document.
There are other affects upon humans, that are equally absent from American publications.
"Puss" is how the reference spelled it, however it is not the correct term. Given the perceived ambiguity (something arising often between American and proper English), I chose "puss" because it seemed less repugnant a term than the seemingly equivalent "pus".
I'm certain, however, that the mistake doesn't undermine a reasonable person's capacity to understand the content of the message. I can't see anyone interpreting it as kittens floating around in their milk.
Sure, these infections can be bad if they get into the milk, but knowing the precautions that go into the supply chain I would say it is extremely rare to get tainted milk.
Your inside information is encouraging. However, I strongly suggest you have a look at the reports in the original links, or google for the Fox reports (that were nixed from being on the air) from Florida about Posilac.
The farmers that use Monsanto's Posilac, and the supply chain they belong to, do not seem to be of the same calibre of integrity as your father-in-law.
No - Microsoft is the largest and most prolific monopoly in the world without a question.
Having looked into the logistics of this, I'm sure that you would find it stifling, the amount of money that De Beers deals with. It is in the same category of astronomical exploitation as Microsoft, but far, far greater in monetary return, from what I have come to understand.
Picture $2,000 up to over $200,000 for every Western-world female, every time she gets married. Then go look at marriage statistics. Microsoft gets $100 - $250 every time someone buys a computer, and though computers may be prolific, they don't touch the statistics of marriage. To compare, monetarily, Microsoft would have to sell over 10x as many computers as people get married. (This is just desktops, but operating systems are the only place where MS has been profitable)
Mind you, diamonds do have a linear overhead related to the mining costs. However, Microsoft similarly has software maintenance and distribution costs, and must procure new revenue through software development.
They are both astronomical entities, but I have come to believe that diamonds blow software out of the water. If you are too stifled by software exploitation, software competitors pop up. Can you compete with 150 years of tradition that demands diamonds for marriage?
Not to say all these points don't have counterarguments. But it is food for thought, and I hope you, like I did, question whether or not Microsoft is really the darkest monopoly today. There are greater evils, unseen and unquestioned.
For those of you who haven't followed diamonds for a while, De Beers is arguably the largest and most prolific monopoly in the world, having survived, among other incidents, an American anti-trust inquiry with its reputation, and vicariously that of diamonds, entirely unscathed.
There are several forms of producing synthetic diamonds, and the closer these synthetic diamonds are to real ones, the more likely the company will be bought and all its intellectual property dissolved.
One company is Apollo Diamond, I recall. From what I understand, their research is conducted in the back of a pharamacy in an undisclosed mall somewhere in the USA.
Apparently, threatening to undermine a multi-billion dollar industry is very risky. I seem to recall there have been numerous coincidental deaths related to diamonds, diamond mines, and synthetic diamonds. Like all things involving enormous economics, life, liberty, and security of person are hardly the most important.
These type of contracts that prevent you from working in your field are typically only enforceable if compensation is provided in exchange. Such compensation has to cover likely earnings as well as lost experience. The prohibition also has to have a limited lifespan - you'd rarely get away with more than 5 years.
The case law I have seen speaks totally contrary to a compensation principle. Do you have any examples?
If I recall correctly, in Warner Bros. Pictures Inc. v. Nelson, I believe the judge suggested menial labour, because he did issue an injunction preventing Nelson from working as an actress. Eventually Nelson went back to WB.
I think the limited lifespan is correct, but I don't know what factors affect how long it can be.
It wouldn't be such a bad thing except for the stupidity of taxing media that are used for things other than music. Why system administrators should have to pay a levy to the music industry in order to archive data to CD is a bit hazy.
This is currently being reviewed by the federal court, from the 2003/2004 Media Levy decision. In the media levy, the Copyright Board of Canada nixed a zero-rating scheme that would have exempt certain organizations, potentially including certain qualified system administrators, from the media levy. In its absence, the dissent (who was pro-zero rating scheme) indicated that the whole levy scheme would now be at an impasse, and would need to be wholly revamped.
Incidentally, in Australia, an equivalent levy was struck down in 1993 for being a "tax" improperly Constitutionally implemented. The CSMA and Retailers of Canada, official objectors to the media levy, are applying for judicial review of the Copyright Board's decision on the grounds that it is, similarly, an unconstitutional tax.
If I have to sign a contract that says that I can't leave them, but they can fire me at any time and keep me from working for any other technology/business-machine/informatics/consulting/whatever-else-IBM-does company for 10 years than that is unfair.
Contracts are allowed to be unfair. It's the signing of a contract, a "meeting of the mind" and a quid pro quo, an exchange, that makes a contract a legally enforceable promise. Many people and companies have lost money on bad contracts, and they are still bound to the terms of it.
There are cases where fairness comes into play. First, if you did not consider the contract before agreeing to it. This is overcome by signing, witnessing, or sealing documents. Do any of those, and you decrease the value of an argument that you didn't consider the implications of the contract. Oral agreements are legally enforceable, but they are more likely to fail on grounds of consideration than written, signed, or sealed contracts.
Also coming into play is a doctrine of unconscionability. If a contract is *really* unfair, it may be considered partly (ie. cy pres) or wholly unenforceable (ie. void). Similarly, if the contract was agreed to under duress, such as threat to security of person, then it may be unenforceable.
You are legally allowed to breach a contract, but the law provides for damages (economic recovery) for said breach. The fairness of that recovery is probably more interesting to you than the fairness of the contract itself, though the contract's fairness is a valid consideration.
In the case of IBM you cited, above, you are bound to not compete for 10 years unless there is something in employment law about non-compete agreements. You are not bound to work for them; courts will never enforce that, particularly in the USA, because it is considered a form of slavery. They can, however, issue an injunction preventing you from doing something, such as competing.
There may be common law or statutory rules that create fairness in employment competition. It is generally recognized that the employer is usually in a position of power.
you had it the wrong way around. It isn't the case that if you discover a former trade secret you have to sign an agreement that prevents you using that knowledge. Rather, if you work for certain companies you will have to sign an agreement saying you won't divulge trade secrets to third parties.
Yes, it is the contract, and breach thereof, that sits you in really hot water. However, there may be an implied agreement in the employment, but I think it's less likely, results in much less consequential damages, and falls back on foreseeability.
For example, if you did find out Coca-Cola's secret formula working in their head office as a janitor, from somewhere other than through the public, you may be liable for damages caused if you publish it, based on the objectively reasonably foreseeable damages to Coca-Cola.
Mind you, I didn't look for much case law in this respect, so I can't say for certain if it has ever been prosecuted like that. I think that's how the theory goes, offhand, mind.
Contracts that prevent someone from working in the field for which they are educated and experienced have often been found unenforceable by courts.
On the contrary, there is a very long and solid history of exclusionary contract law that stipulates enforceable prevention of work in a specific field. The most common and cited examples are the contracts of actors and musicians.
A specific example is Warner Bros. Pictures Inc. v. Nelson, [1937] 1 K.B. 209 (Ch.D.). Nelson wanted to work for another company. In there contract there is a negative covenant ie. defendant must not work for another company, so what is the plaintiff (Warner Bros) entitled to? Typically courts award damages to the plaintiff, but in this case, they specifically enforce the covenant, and prevent Nelson from working for the competitor.
So it goes for the rest of us, too... if you are privy to trade secrets, you may have to sign an agreement that prevents you from contributing to certain projects. It is unlikely the trade secret owner could prevent you from working for a competitor, for example, unless they could prove that you had intentions of revealing the trade secret.
This intention may be intrinsic to, or constructed from, the position offered for employ (ie. food engineer for Coke becomes food engineer for Pepsi) for which they could get an injunction preventing that particular employment.
Slashdot Mirror
The sound being cancelled was, in addition to engine noise, road noise resulting from the interaction between the tires and the ashphault. Fuel cell cars will still have tire noise.
However, I hear they lose the rising pitch we associate with acceleration, so drivers don't have the same queues to their speed.
If I remember correctly, the federal privacy law protects you from the government collecting information on you. It does not preclude the private practice of collecting, storing, using and selling personal information.
It is a start, though.
I have heard of something like that for cars ages ago, basically replays the engine sound over the car sound to negate it.
They had something like this on an Infiniti, I seem to recall, for tire+road noise, so the car was effectively silent as it drove. I think they cancelled the project because they hit more kids playing in the streets who were acoustically (and otherwise) unaware of the approaching vehicle.
I've always believed that Linux/FOSS distributions would be a fantastic model for this sort of thin horizontal distributed economy. You have thousands, if not millions of Linux savvy people out there who can make money on those around them who just want their computer to work for a specific purpose.
This beats the hell out of the centralized monopoly model. Who better to support your computer than someone who understands it intimately? If they cannot fix it, they can go to the author and ask them to fix it - an unlikely happenstance for the average user, but not so much for a "digitician".
However, the Internet and disks are still not considered taxable medias. Sueing peoples make no sense. What they should do, it is to trying to convince the Board to include Internet and disks in the list. And the money should go to the artists rather than to the recording industry.
You have just identified a distinguishing point upon which a court can make a verdict in favour of the music industry: the Internet is not considered a taxable[sic; should be leviable] media.
As the levy does not apply to the internet, a court may say that it is not private copying at all. The massive scale of the internet also works against it as part of a private copying collective regime. Unlike CD's, P2P over the internet scales exponentionally in an effectively unlimited broadcast-type, indiscriminant scale. Your P2P relationships are definitively copying, hence perhaps outside the common expectation of private, where one would expect that you had a prior existing relationship to accommodate the copying.
Legal though private copying may be, it may be possible to convince a court that copying over the internet is not indemnified. Mind you, I do believe the courts will err on the side of the ISP's, but I wanted to point out this argument since it is, and will continue to be, relevant to the discussion.
Note, some of the money does go to the artists, but the distribution method is, shall we say, currently totally inadequately defined.
then perhaps libraries should be shut down too
Incidentally, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled last month that photocopying in the Great Library at Osgoode is not a copyright violation.
This is true, but there certainly aren't several GB of sectors reserved for errors. :)
If I recall my engineering class correctly, it was 40% of the hard drive reserved for errors. That was back in the 240MB HD days, though I'm not sure that the probability of bad sectors would be higher now. If the ratio stays even remotely the same, it could mean 40GB for a 100GB of storage sold as a 60GB drive.
I am actually quite certain that there would be gigabytes allocated to bad sector remapping on modern disks. Whether it is accessible or not is another question - I always assumed it to be transparent and taken care of by the modern hard disk controllers. Mind, bad sectors were once taken care of by BIOS so it is possible that you can circumvent the transparency and access the extra space.
I've got mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, you're right, it's completely wrong, the material is copyright of WSJ and they've got a right to do what they wish with it.
/.ers never reading the article anyway...). It won't take away from their business model as nobody looking for WSJ articles will trawl through /. for them, there are just too few of them here.
On the other hand, it's pasted here for people to discuss it. The discussion won't make sense without being able to see it (cue 10 comments about
I know that doesn't negate the fact that it is a plain and simple case of copyright infringement. But practically speaking I don't think it does any real harm...
I agree that it does little harm, and I have mixed feelings too. But I think that there was no benefit to posting the content -- in the case of a slashdotting, it makes sense since the original content is not available in a timely manner. In this case, the content is available.
However, in this case, the content was pasted to slashdot to preempt unavailability 7 days from now. It undermines the desire to read WSJ online, as referenced from slashdot - interferring with two revenue models for them:
1. banner ads, and
2. over 7-day access.
As an open forum, I don't think it would be good, much less practical, to prevent people from posting contents. But certainly I think that there are situations, such as this, where it should be discouraged.
Is anyone concerned that this is:
:) It does strike me as a bit of a conundrum, though. Had the authors or creators intended unhindered publication, would they not have specified so?
1. blatant plagarism, and
2. undermining their business model.
We might not agree with their business model, and certainly if they were slashdotted I could see posting this having a point, but someone put the time into this work, presumably with remuneration in mind. Just pasting the content here, for the sake of undermining their 7-day free access business model, seems somewhat unethical to me.
Perhaps I'm barking to the wrong bunch.
A couple things. First, the Berne, Paris, et al., conventions and treaties are not binding. Look to the Copyright Act. In particular, Appendix II, s.2:
(2) The obligations of the United States under the Berne Convention may be performed only pursuant to appropriate domestic law.
This is only relevant in cases of conflict.
s. 106(1) of the US Copyright Act provides the owner protection from copying. SCO will probably argue for a violation of their literary rights to the source code, which though it need not be distributed with the binaries, need be available to be distributed with the binaries [See GNU GPL, s.3(b)], an invitation to copyright infringement. As well, SCO will probably argue that there has been a violation of their right to the binaries.
In both cases, they can go after either the distributor or the recipient for this claim, but will no doubt choose to go after the deeper pockets, and try to set a precedent. You are correct in taht there is no Copyright regime exclusivity of use, but I am not sure there has to be one. We will see!
And the corporation's lawyers will respond, "Sorry, we bought our Linux from (insert distributor here). You have take your claim to them, and you will receive any compensation you might be due directly from them for selling SCO IP without a valid license. Piss off."
The deference argument might not work because of privity. In their mystery world, SCO has a relationship with the particular fortune 500 company, because it is violating SCO's copyright. SCO does not necessarily have a relationship with the distributor. SCO has a right to sue them, too, but Linux distributors are not deep pockets or headline grabbers. A property holder, and similarly in the case of constructive property like copyright, can claim any infringement against any violator, in intent or negligence.
This permits people who copy movies to be as liable as people who possess bootlegs. It is the use (or presumed use) which is violated, and that use often flows from presence. In other words, SCO will say "look, that Acme Co. is violating our property rights by benefitting from their use of Linux." It is possible that it's more likely that you can distribute Linux than you can actually use it, but both are copyright infringements in the absence of permission (as explicitly set out in the GNU GPL), and the "use" of Linux is possibly an ancillary claim of "unjust enrichment" to the user in addition to restitution.
A half-ass analogy would be a movie theatre that rents a DVD at blockbuster and puts it through a projector to make money off of it in public sales, directly contrary to the copyright stipulations on the movie that prohibit redistribution, sale, or profit without prior written authorization. The copyright holder/MPAA isn't going to go after Blockbuster, who legally (or illegally if it's bootlegged) distributed the copyright material, but rather the theatre which also violated the rights. The theatre has (a) potentially deeper pockets, (b) directly, and intentionally or negligently infringed the rights of the property holder, and (c) no means of indemnification through the distributor. The corollary is that there is no onus upon the distributor to validate a use of the purchaser.
In other words, if the use of Linux is part of the claim, not just possession, the Fortune 500 company has no indemnification through the distributor. Unless there was an explicit indemnification clause in the distributor's license (GPL? BSD? etc.) or contract, it is unlikely, or I'd go so far as to say impossible, to pass the buck to them.
The Fortune 500 company is almost certain to be a valid target of SCO's claim. Mind you, being a valid target does not validate the claim itself!
I can't think of a x.y.0 release of any software project that's been properly stable.
.0 releases, and have never been burned. YMMV, of course, and they are an exception, not the rule, I suspect.
OpenBSD comes to mind. I faithfully rely on their
At some point the chewbacca defense starts to look a lot more rational.
Would that be the "rip your arms off" defense?
Interesting observation. I've seen videos of the side effects on cows with Posilac. I'm not sure what would be mastitis, per se, but I can tell you that what I saw was cruel and repugnant.
The udders would sometimes be swollen and almost dragging on the ground, impeding the cow's ability to walk, and there would be so much pus around the teats that the milking mechanisms would just slide off. There were an assortment other side effects as well.
Mind you, I do not know how often these things occur in untreated cows. The Canadian drug administration indicated a 25% increase in mastitis, among other symptoms (lameness, infertility, reduced life expectancy), and pointedly indicated a nominal increase in milk production. Indeed, from what I recall, the FDA had similar claims, which were erased from the final document.
There are other affects upon humans, that are equally absent from American publications.
A wee offtopic, but ...
"Puss" is how the reference spelled it, however it is not the correct term. Given the perceived ambiguity (something arising often between American and proper English), I chose "puss" because it seemed less repugnant a term than the seemingly equivalent "pus".
I'm certain, however, that the mistake doesn't undermine a reasonable person's capacity to understand the content of the message. I can't see anyone interpreting it as kittens floating around in their milk.
Sure, these infections can be bad if they get into the milk, but knowing the precautions that go into the supply chain I would say it is extremely rare to get tainted milk.
Your inside information is encouraging. However, I strongly suggest you have a look at the reports in the original links, or google for the Fox reports (that were nixed from being on the air) from Florida about Posilac.
The farmers that use Monsanto's Posilac, and the supply chain they belong to, do not seem to be of the same calibre of integrity as your father-in-law.
When customers stop buying it, corporations will stop selling it.
If that were the case, Monsanto would have stopped selling Posilac long ago. On the other hand, when your executives are appointed to the EPA, and you can prevent the news from airing the truth, who cares about the puss content of 1/3rd of America's childrens' milk?
Customers have all kinds of choice. It is awareness and influence that are starkly lacking in the modern America.
No - Microsoft is the largest and most prolific monopoly in the world without a question.
Having looked into the logistics of this, I'm sure that you would find it stifling, the amount of money that De Beers deals with. It is in the same category of astronomical exploitation as Microsoft, but far, far greater in monetary return, from what I have come to understand.
Picture $2,000 up to over $200,000 for every Western-world female, every time she gets married. Then go look at marriage statistics. Microsoft gets $100 - $250 every time someone buys a computer, and though computers may be prolific, they don't touch the statistics of marriage. To compare, monetarily, Microsoft would have to sell over 10x as many computers as people get married. (This is just desktops, but operating systems are the only place where MS has been profitable)
Mind you, diamonds do have a linear overhead related to the mining costs. However, Microsoft similarly has software maintenance and distribution costs, and must procure new revenue through software development.
They are both astronomical entities, but I have come to believe that diamonds blow software out of the water. If you are too stifled by software exploitation, software competitors pop up. Can you compete with 150 years of tradition that demands diamonds for marriage?
Not to say all these points don't have counterarguments. But it is food for thought, and I hope you, like I did, question whether or not Microsoft is really the darkest monopoly today. There are greater evils, unseen and unquestioned.
For those of you who haven't followed diamonds for a while, De Beers is arguably the largest and most prolific monopoly in the world, having survived, among other incidents, an American anti-trust inquiry with its reputation, and vicariously that of diamonds, entirely unscathed.
There are several forms of producing synthetic diamonds, and the closer these synthetic diamonds are to real ones, the more likely the company will be bought and all its intellectual property dissolved.
One company is Apollo Diamond, I recall. From what I understand, their research is conducted in the back of a pharamacy in an undisclosed mall somewhere in the USA.
Apparently, threatening to undermine a multi-billion dollar industry is very risky. I seem to recall there have been numerous coincidental deaths related to diamonds, diamond mines, and synthetic diamonds. Like all things involving enormous economics, life, liberty, and security of person are hardly the most important.
These type of contracts that prevent you from working in your field are typically only enforceable if compensation is provided in exchange. Such compensation has to cover likely earnings as well as lost experience. The prohibition also has to have a limited lifespan - you'd rarely get away with more than 5 years.
The case law I have seen speaks totally contrary to a compensation principle. Do you have any examples?
If I recall correctly, in Warner Bros. Pictures Inc. v. Nelson, I believe the judge suggested menial labour, because he did issue an injunction preventing Nelson from working as an actress. Eventually Nelson went back to WB.
I think the limited lifespan is correct, but I don't know what factors affect how long it can be.
It wouldn't be such a bad thing except for the stupidity of taxing media that are used for things other than music. Why system administrators should have to pay a levy to the music industry in order to archive data to CD is a bit hazy.
This is currently being reviewed by the federal court, from the 2003/2004 Media Levy decision. In the media levy, the Copyright Board of Canada nixed a zero-rating scheme that would have exempt certain organizations, potentially including certain qualified system administrators, from the media levy. In its absence, the dissent (who was pro-zero rating scheme) indicated that the whole levy scheme would now be at an impasse, and would need to be wholly revamped.
Incidentally, in Australia, an equivalent levy was struck down in 1993 for being a "tax" improperly Constitutionally implemented. The CSMA and Retailers of Canada, official objectors to the media levy, are applying for judicial review of the Copyright Board's decision on the grounds that it is, similarly, an unconstitutional tax.
If I have to sign a contract that says that I can't leave them, but they can fire me at any time and keep me from working for any other technology/business-machine/informatics/consulting /whatever-else-IBM-does company for 10 years than that is unfair.
Contracts are allowed to be unfair. It's the signing of a contract, a "meeting of the mind" and a quid pro quo, an exchange, that makes a contract a legally enforceable promise. Many people and companies have lost money on bad contracts, and they are still bound to the terms of it.
There are cases where fairness comes into play. First, if you did not consider the contract before agreeing to it. This is overcome by signing, witnessing, or sealing documents. Do any of those, and you decrease the value of an argument that you didn't consider the implications of the contract. Oral agreements are legally enforceable, but they are more likely to fail on grounds of consideration than written, signed, or sealed contracts.
Also coming into play is a doctrine of unconscionability. If a contract is *really* unfair, it may be considered partly (ie. cy pres) or wholly unenforceable (ie. void). Similarly, if the contract was agreed to under duress, such as threat to security of person, then it may be unenforceable.
You are legally allowed to breach a contract, but the law provides for damages (economic recovery) for said breach. The fairness of that recovery is probably more interesting to you than the fairness of the contract itself, though the contract's fairness is a valid consideration.
In the case of IBM you cited, above, you are bound to not compete for 10 years unless there is something in employment law about non-compete agreements. You are not bound to work for them; courts will never enforce that, particularly in the USA, because it is considered a form of slavery. They can, however, issue an injunction preventing you from doing something, such as competing.
There may be common law or statutory rules that create fairness in employment competition. It is generally recognized that the employer is usually in a position of power.
you had it the wrong way around. It isn't the case that if you discover a former trade secret you have to sign an agreement that prevents you using that knowledge. Rather, if you work for certain companies you will have to sign an agreement saying you won't divulge trade secrets to third parties.
Yes, it is the contract, and breach thereof, that sits you in really hot water. However, there may be an implied agreement in the employment, but I think it's less likely, results in much less consequential damages, and falls back on foreseeability.
For example, if you did find out Coca-Cola's secret formula working in their head office as a janitor, from somewhere other than through the public, you may be liable for damages caused if you publish it, based on the objectively reasonably foreseeable damages to Coca-Cola.
Mind you, I didn't look for much case law in this respect, so I can't say for certain if it has ever been prosecuted like that. I think that's how the theory goes, offhand, mind.
Contracts that prevent someone from working in the field for which they are educated and experienced have often been found unenforceable by courts.
... if you are privy to trade secrets, you may have to sign an agreement that prevents you from contributing to certain projects. It is unlikely the trade secret owner could prevent you from working for a competitor, for example, unless they could prove that you had intentions of revealing the trade secret.
;)
On the contrary, there is a very long and solid history of exclusionary contract law that stipulates enforceable prevention of work in a specific field. The most common and cited examples are the contracts of actors and musicians.
A specific example is Warner Bros. Pictures Inc. v. Nelson, [1937] 1 K.B. 209 (Ch.D.). Nelson wanted to work for another company. In there contract there is a negative covenant ie. defendant must not work for another company, so what is the plaintiff (Warner Bros) entitled to? Typically courts award damages to the plaintiff, but in this case, they specifically enforce the covenant, and prevent Nelson from working for the competitor.
So it goes for the rest of us, too
This intention may be intrinsic to, or constructed from, the position offered for employ (ie. food engineer for Coke becomes food engineer for Pepsi) for which they could get an injunction preventing that particular employment.
Or something like that.
... Looks like the tech tree to Civ II ...